The mobile photography movement is catching on with hobbyists and professionals alike because of its simplicity.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

The mobile photography movement is catching on with hobbyists and...

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Jake Zimmer of Tahoe City checks out artwork in the Digital Art Gallery at Macworld/iWorld in the Moscone Center in S.F. Mobile photography is taking off.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Jake Zimmer of Tahoe City checks out artwork in the Digital Art...

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Richard Koci Hernandez, assistant professor of new media at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, gives a talk during the convention.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Richard Koci Hernandez, assistant professor of new media at the UC...

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Chris Hollis, GES installer, attaches signage to the Daylight Viewfinder booth in the iPhonography Lounge in Moscone Center West at Macworld/iWorld on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Chris Hollis, GES installer, attaches signage to the Daylight...

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Macworld/iWorld attendees register and walk through the lobby of Moscone Center West on Thursday, January 31, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Macworld/iWorld attendees register and walk through the lobby of...

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Michal Andrzej Dabrowski of Poland tries out UltraFocus 8000 Active Noise Cancelling Headphones at the Polk booth in the expo hall at Macworld/iWorld in Moscone Center West on Thursday, January 31, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif.

Many have trivialized Apple's iPhones and iPads as mere "consumption" devices, great for reading or viewing, but a pain for producing anything more complicated than an e-mail.

Try telling that to the hundreds of Macworld/iWorld attendees who eagerly participated in some of the more than a dozen workshops dedicated to improving shooting and editing photos on the devices at the trade show last week. Try telling that to the more than a dozen exhibitors at Moscone Center West showing off lenses, tripods, apps and other gear designed to produce higher-quality images.

The term "iPhoneography" has been floating around niche circles for the past few years, but the mobile photography movement is breaking into the mainstream, as hobbyists and professionals alike come to realize what can be done on the devices. The relatively low price, high image quality, editing ease and instant distribution have enabled a burst of creativity in the field, altering approaches from photojournalism to fine art to film.

Some see it as nothing less than a revolution in photography.

"It's not too dissimilar from when film went from black and white to color, or when Kodak first brought the camera to the masses," said Dan Marcolina, author of "iPhone Obsessed" and organizer of the Mobile Masters workshop on the opening day of Macworld.

Simple advantage

Technically speaking, iPhones and iPads are far from the best cameras in the world. Ditto for their various Android, Windows and BlackBerry counterparts.

Tiny lenses squeezed into smartphones aren't great in low lighting conditions and generally can't capture scenes with rich depth of field, those gloriously blurry foregrounds or backgrounds that allow photographers and cinematographers to draw your eye to the subject.

The devices also can't shoot in the superhigh video frame rates or resolutions of modern cinema cameras, which improve the clarity of images and allow for super slow motion.

But mobile photography devotees say there are distinct advantages that more than make up for the devices' shortcomings.

One of the biggest is simplicity. Mobile shooters don't have to think about f-stops and ISO ratings and other technical considerations, and can just concentrate on composing and capturing the moment.

"Camera phone technology has more to do with your heart than your head," said Jack Hollingsworth, the opening speaker at the Mobile Masters event, who has increasingly incorporated the iPhone into his commercial photography work.

Then, of course, there is the seemingly infinite array of cheap and easy-to-use apps, allowing users to filter, crop, combine, tint, scratch up and write across their images.

Until recently, most of these tricks required uploading images into expensive desktop software that took a considerable amount of time to learn, such as Adobe Photoshop. The mere fact that images can now be edited easily, across multiple apps, on the same device on which they're taken, makes it simpler to try new things. It invites the user to play around.

Wide distribution

"I feel like I got my box of crayons back," said Richard Koci Hernandez, who grew up coloring action figures until he graduated to shooting wannabe Ansel Adams photos in his early teens. He's now an assistant professor of new media at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a veritable Instagram celebrity. His gritty, black-and-white street photography has earned him more than 162,000 followers and counting.

For Koci Hernandez, this is the real advantage of mobile photography - immediate distribution.

He doesn't have to wait for magazines or newspapers to curate, print and ship his photos, he presses 'share' in Instagram and they instantly reach a community of tens of thousands around the world. Building up his name by giving away his work generates regular paid gigs as well.

Indeed, mobile photography has already escaped the confines of social networks in many ways.

Included in exhibitions

The artwork is regularly exhibited in blogs like LifeInLoFi.com, tablet magazines like Snap, e-books like Marcolina's just released "Mobile Masters" and even brick-and-mortar galleries.

Damon Winter of the New York Times won third place in the feature picture story category of the prestigious Pictures of the Year International competition, for a series on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan created with the Hipstamatic app.

A handful of short films and commercials also have been shot with iPhones. In fact, one of Friday's final scheduled sessions at Macworld was the iPhone Film Festival, which included the premier of "Departure," a movie shot by three different directors in three locations, all on iPhones.

Array of opportunities

The emergence of mobile photography obviously creates opportunities for businesses, including the startups behind popular apps like Camera+, Filterstorm, ProCamera and others.

Adobe has been creating new versions of its popular image-editing software specifically for phones and tablets, but which can easily trade files with its full-fledged software package.

Meanwhile, exhibitors at Macworld were pushing an array of accessories of widely varying utility, including stabilizer devices to reduce camera shakiness, eyepieces to avoid screen glare and a mirror attachment that allows users to discretely snap pictures while the phone is facing down.

Schneider Optics of Van Nuys, a division of respected German lens company Schneider Kreuznach, was showing off its system of fish-eye, wide angle and telephoto options for the iPhone. The lenses have earned relatively high marks among reviewers within a category largely dominated by cheap optics to date.